using microsoft excel - o'neil · using microsoft excel 2010 advanced skills ... this is the...

Using Microsoft Excel 2010 Advanced Skills

© Steve O’Neil 2010 of 24 http://www.oneil.com.au/pc/

Using Microsoft Excel

Advanced Skills

Excel contains numerous tools that are intended to meet a wide range of

requirements. Some of the more specialised tools are useful to only

certain types of people while others have value for more general excel

users. These exercises will cover some of the advanced features that may

be useful for most excel users. These features will include cell naming,

cell notes, conditional formatting, data validation and custom number

formats.

Naming Cells

In a large spreadsheet, cell referencing and selection may be simplified by making use

of names. You can assign a unique name to an individual cell or to a range of cells.

This can make it quicker and easier to refer to the cells in charts and functions.

Additionally, functions that make use of names are easier to read. For instance, a

formula that says =B4-B5 doesn’t make as much sense as a formula that says

=Sales-Expenses.

Exercise 1. Creating Cell Names

1) Create a new workbook in Excel and create a table like the one below.



2) Save the file as Budget.

3) Click on Cell A3 which will have the current date.

4) Click in the Names box which is to the left of the formula bar. Currently it will display the

reference of the currently selected cell.

5) Type Date in the box and press [Enter] to create the name for that cell.

6) Click in another cell anywhere on the worksheet (or even in another worksheet).

7) Click on the dropdown arrow next to the Names box. A list of names for the current

workbook will appear.

8) Click on the Date name. Excel will automatically go to, and select that named cell, even if

you were on a different sheet.

Note Whenever you select a cell or range of cells that is named, the name will appear in the names box instead of the cell reference.

9) Select the cell range B6:B7 which should contain the cells with the income amounts.

10) Click in the Names box, type Income and press [Enter].

Note If you type a name in the names box without pressing [Enter] afterwards, the name might not be created.

11) Select the cell range B11:B25 which should contain the expense figures.

12) Click in the Names box, type Expenses and press [Enter].

13) Test the new named ranges by selecting them from

the names dropdown list. Each range should become

selected when you select its range.

14) Click in cell D8. This cell will contain the formula to

calculate total income.

15) Enter the following formula.

=Sum(Income)

Excel will make use of the range name to add up all of the cells in that range.

16) Click in cell B26 which will contain the total expenses.

17) Click on the Autosum icon.

When the Autosum tool completes the function, it will use the

range name you have created instead of the less meaningful

cell references.

18) Press [Enter] to complete the function.

19) Save the changes to the workbook.



Exercise 2. Creating Names Automatically

If you have a lot of cells you want to name, it is possible to have the names automatically

created for you from table headings/labels.

1) Select A6:B8. These cells contain the income labels and amounts.

2) From the Formulas tab on the Ribbon click the Create from Selection icon.

3) We want the data cells to be named based on the cells in the left column so make sure the

Left column option is selected and then click OK.

4) Click in cell B6, B7 or B8. Look in the Names box to see the names that have been created.

Notice that names with more than one word have been created using an underscore. E.g. cell

B8 will now have the name Total_Income. This is

because names cannot contain spaces. Names must

also begin with a letter.

5) Select the cell range B11:B26. This should contain the expenses data and labels.

6) Click .

7) Click OK to define names for these cells.

We can view, modify or delete the names that have already been created by using the Name

Manager options.



8) Make sure the Formulas tab is still selected and click the Name Manager icon.

This dialog lists all the names in the current workbook. From here you can delete names and

modify the cells that a name refers to.

9) Scroll through the list to see information about each of the names.

10) Click Close to close the dialog without making any changes.



Exercise 3. Pasting Names

When you are creating a formula you can use names as you have already seen. If your workbook

has a lot of names, however, then it may be difficult to type a particular name from memory.

You can’t select names from the names box since

when you are editing a formula; the names box

changes in to a list of commonly used functions as

shown to the right. Instead you can insert a name in

to a formula.

1) Click in cell B28. This is where we will calculate the savings in the budget.

2) Type an equals sign = to begin a formula.

3) From the Formulas tab click . Notice that many of the other ribbon options

are not available while you are editing a cell. A list of names you can use in your formula

will appear.

4) From the list select Total_Income and click OK. The name will be inserted in to the formula.

5) Type a minus sign. –

6) Click .

7) Select Total_Expenses from the list and click OK.

The formula should appear as =Total_Income-Total_Expenses

8) Press [Enter] to complete the formula.



Cell Comments

Cell comments can be used to guide a person who is using your spreadsheet. They can contain

tips, and other information that may be helpful. They are indicated by a small red triangle in the

corner of the cell. When the mouse is moved over the cell, the note will appear for the user.

Comments can be formatted to match the look of the rest of the spreadsheet.

Exercise 4. Creating a Cell Comment

1) Select cell B20. This is the cell with the Electricity amount.

2) From the Review tab on the Ribbon click New Comment (You can also right click on the

cell and select ). A comment will appear next to the cell with your

name on it. The name is taken from the one that was entered when Excel was installed,

though this can be changed from Excel’s options.

3) Enter the text, “This bill is paid every second month” as shown below in the comment.

4) Click outside the comment to finish editing it. A red mark is visible in the top right corner of

cell B20.

5) Move your mouse over the cell to view the comment.

6) Click the Edit Comment icon on the ribbon (you can also right click on the cell and

select ).

7) Right click on the border of the comment and select . It is important to

make sure your mouse is over the comment’s border, otherwise you will only be able to

format font options.

8) Use the Format options to change the background colour of the comment under the Colors

and Lines tab.

9) Make any other formatting changes you like and then click OK to close the options.

10) Save the changes to the file.



11) Click the File tab on the Ribbon and then click Print.

12) From the bottom of the Print options select Page Setup.

13) On the Sheet tab you will find a Comments option. This allows you to choose whether or not

comments will appear when you print your sheet.

14) Click Cancel and then click the File tab (or press the [Esc] key to return to your sheet.



Conditional Formatting

Conditional formatting allows you to create rules that will change the formatting in a cell based

on the values in the cell. It can be useful for highlighting certain parts of the spreadsheet when

certain conditions are met. In our table we will apply conditional formatting to highlight

different expenses.

Exercise 5. Applying Conditional Formatting

1) From the Names drop down list, select Expenses. All of the expenses cells should be

selected.

2) Make sure the Home tab is selected and click Conditional Formatting.

First we’ll test out some of the Bars, scales and icon sets.

3) Select the Data Bars option from the list.

4) Move your mouse over some of the data bar options and your spreadsheet will show a

preview of how that option looks.

5) Select the Color Scales option.

6) Move your mouse over some of the colour scales options to see how they would look.

7) Select the Icon Sets option.

8) Move your mouse over some of the icon sets options to see how they would look.



In addition to the built in conditional format sets, you can create your own conditional format

rules.

9) With the expenses cells still selected, click Conditional Formatting and then select

10) Under Select a Rule Type, make sure it is set to Format only cells that contain.

11) Change the Edit the Rule Description so that it appears as follows.

12) Click the button. Format options will appear.

13) Select a dark blue text colour and click OK to return to the Formatting rule options.

14) Click OK again to complete the new formatting rule. Since your cells already had dark blue

text you might not notice a difference until we add additional rules.



15) Add three more rules. One to format values from 100 to 399 with green text. Another to

format values from 50 to 99 with orange text. Another for format values below 50 with red

text. Examples of each rule can be seen below.

Each of the cells should now be formatted according to their value.

16) Try changing the values in some of the cells to see the formatting change.

17) Save the changes to the file.



Exercise 6. Printing Options

1) Select the File tab on the Ribbon and then select Print. Options like the ones below will

appear. The right section shows a preview of what your page will look like when printed

with the selected options. If your sheet covers more than one page, you can use the buttons

at the bottom to select which page is showing in the preview.

2) To print with the standard options, select the number of copies and then click the Print button

as shown below.

Next option shows the currently selected printer. If you click on it you can select from a list of

the printers that are available on your computer. Many of the following options will depend on

the printer that is selected. For instance, not all printers are capable of double sided printing.

3) Select one of the printers in the list and then click Printer Properties. This will display some of

the options that are specific to the selected printer. These often include options for print

quality and paper types.

4) Click Cancel to close the Printer Properties and return to Excel’s print options.



5) Under the printing options you will see a Page Setup link. Click on it to open the Page Setup

options.

6) Have a look under each tab to see the options available. Click Cancel when done.

7) Press [Esc] to close the Print options and return to your sheet.

8) Click the Print Layout tab. Many of the options you have just seen are available on the

Ribbon under the Print Layout tab.

Tip You can open the print options quickly by pressing [Ctrl] [P]. Then close them quickly by pressing

[Esc].



9) Open the Music Charts file.

10) Click the View tab.

11) Click Page Break Preview.

The Page Break Preview view shows blue lines to indicate where the edge will be.

Currently the table will be 2 pages wide and just over 2 pages high. We’d like to print so that it

is one page wide and 2 pages high. You can make this possible by dragging the dotted page

border markers.

12) Drag the dotted line in the middle of the table so that it is to the right of the table content.

The table will now fit on one page. If you scroll down you will see that it no longer goes over 2

pages.

You can check the Print Preview in the print options again to make sure.

13) Click the Normal icon to return to normal view.

Note When you are in normal view, thin dotted lines will mark the page borders. These lines will often appear after you have viewed print options.



Exercise 7. Freezing Panes

When you have a long table, you might want to keep the headings visible when you scroll

downward. This is possible with the Freeze Panes option.

When you choose the Freeze Panes option, Excel will freeze any cells to the top and left of your

current selection so that they don’t scroll. If you only want to freeze the top rows then make sure

the cell you select is in the first column so that there is nothing to the left to freeze.

1) Click in the first cell under the headings. (A4)

2) Select the View tab.

3) Click the Freeze Panes icon and then select Freeze Panes.

A thin line will appear above the cell you have selected.

4) Scroll down the sheet and anything above the line will be frozen in place.

5) Click the Freeze Panes icon again and select Unfreeze Panes.



Data Validation

If you are creating an Excel spreadsheet that will be used by other people it is

important to make it as easy to use as possible, especially if the eventual users will

be people who are not skilled at using Excel. Reducing the possibility of errors

can make a workbook easier to use and this is where Excel’s data validation

feature can be useful. Data Validation can be used in the following ways.

Restrict the data that can be entered in to certain cells.

Provide a list of accepted values to assist in data entry.

Provide prompts to assist a user in data entry.

Produce meaningful error messages when incorrect data has been added.

Exercise 8. Viewing Existing Data

1) Open the workbook called Theatre Ticket, and close any other workbooks that are open.

2) Look through the existing contents of the workbook.

Cells A1:C23 contain the information for generating a ticket.

3) Click in the Names box and you will see that this range of cells has a name Print_Area.

4) Print Preview the workbook [Ctrl] [P] and you will see that only these cells will print, due to

the settings in Page Setup.

5) Click Page Setup and then click on the Sheet tab. You will see that the print area is set to

A1:C23.



Tip You can easily set the print range in a sheet by first selecting the cells, then from the Page Layout tab, click the Print Area icon and select Set Print Area.

6) Press [Esc] twice to close the page setup options and close the print options.

7) The ranges E27:F31 and E34:F38 won’t print but both provide information that is used in 2

lookup functions. We can also use some of this information in our data validation. Look at

these lookup functions in cells B11 and B12. Notice the comment in cell B9.

The function in B11 checks what type of ticket has been entered in C11 and then uses a Vlookup

to insert a matching ticket price. The function in B12 operates in a similar way to check the seat

type and then return an amount to multiply the ticket price by. The formula in B14 calculates the

final ticket price.

We are going to use Data Validation to both restrict and assist data entry.



Exercise 9. Adding Data Validation Rules

1) Select cell B9. This cell contains the duration of the show in minutes. Since none of the

shows go for longer than 200 minutes, we can put in a validation rule which restricts the data

that can be entered.

2) Select the Data tab on the Ribbon.

3) Click the Data Validation icon (if you click the top part of the icon you won’t need to

select from the menu of options and will go straight to data validation). A dialog box

like the one below will appear.

4) Change Allow to Whole Number. This will restrict the cell so that only whole numbers with

no decimals can be entered.

5) Change Data to less than or equal to.

6) When the Maximum box appears, enter 200 in the box to set that as the upper limit. In

addition to entering a number in this box you can also select a cell in your workbook which

has a suitable value. The options should now look like the example above.

The Input Message tab allows us to enter a popup prompt that will appear when the cell is

selected. Since the cell already has a comment, we’ll leave the Input message for this cell blank.

7) Click the Error Alert tab.

In this tab we can create a custom error message that will appear if the user enters a value not

allowed under the Validation Criteria. In this case, the error message will appear if a number

greater than 200 is entered, so we can create an error message

appropriate for that situation.

The Style options determine the type of error message that will appear.

For instance, a Stop style error message will prevent the entry of

invalid data while the other types are only warnings.

8) Make sure the Style is set to Stop.

9) In the Title enter Invalid Duration.



10) For the Error Message type, “This cell must contain a number of minutes no greater than

200”. The options should look like the example below.

11) Click OK to complete the validation rule.

12) Type a number greater than 200 in the cell and press [Enter]. Your error message will appear.

13) Click Cancel to abort the change.

Note We have only created a validation rule for a single cell. If you have several cells that are all going to contain similar data, you can select them all so that you can create a validation rule for them all at the same time.



Exercise 10. Create Data Validation Lists

1) Select cell C1. This cell should contain the ticket type.

2) Click the Data Validation icon and make sure the Settings tab is showing.

3) Change the Allow option to List.

The Source box will appear. This allows us to provide a list of numbers or labels that will be

accepted. Anything entered that doesn’t match something in our list will produce an error. We

can either type in each of the entries separated by a comma or select a range of cells which has

an appropriate value in each cell. Since we already have a suitable range of cells being used in

the Vlookup function, we can also use it for a data validation list.

4) Make sure your cursor is in the source box and make sure you can see the Ticket Types table

in cells E28:F31 (you can still scroll down when the Data Validation options are showing). If

you can’t see it, you can click the icon to the right of the source box to temporarily hide

the dialog box.

5) Select cells E28:E31. The cell references will appear in the source box. If you hid the Data

Validation Dialog in the previous step, click the icon to display it again.

6) Make sure the In-cell dropdown option is selected. This will mean that when the cell is

selected, a dropdown list of the allowable data will appear to make data entry easier. The

options should look like the example above.



7) Change the Input Message options so that they look like the example below.

8) Change the Error Alert options to look like the example below.

9) Click OK to complete the validation rule.

While the cell is selected, your input message will be visible next to the cell.

A dropdown arrow list will also appear next to the cell. If a value is entered in the cell which

doesn’t match an item in the ticket types list, a warning message will appear.

10) Select a ticket type from the dropdown list. Notice that all of the formulae in the worksheet

recalculate based on the changed information.



11) Select C12 – the Seating type cell.

Create a validation rule with the following options.

12) Test the validation rule in cell C12 by using the list and entering invalid data.



Custom Number Formats

In the Exercise on formatting we created some custom number formats. In the following

exercises we’re going to create some additional custom number formats using the ticket

workbook.

Exercise 11. Creating Custom Date and Time Formats

1) Select the date in cell B7.

2) Select Press [Ctrl] [1] shortcut.

3) Make sure the Number tab is selected.

4) Select Custom from the Category list.

5) Under Type, delete whatever is currently in there. The list below that contains several

existing custom formats and will also keep any that you create so they can be reused later.

6) Enter the following custom date code.

7) Click OK to apply the custom format. The date in the cell will now take on the new format.

8) Select B8, the time cell.

9) Create the following custom time format for that cell.

The format should make the time in the cell look like the following example.

7:30 PM



Exercise 13. Creating Custom Number Formats

Remember that when you create a custom number format, it is possible to create four different

formats at once. One for positive numbers, one for negative numbers, one for zero values and

another for text values. Each section in the format is separated by a semi colon.

According to Excel’s online help, if you specify only two sections, the first is used for positive

numbers and zeros, and the second is used for negative numbers. If you specify only one

section, it is used for all numbers. If you skip a section, include the ending semicolon for that

section. E.g.

As you saw in the date and time formats, several symbols can be used in number formats to

represent certain types of formats. Additionally, there are a couple of other guidelines to

remember.

Any text that is to appear as part of the format needs to be enclosed in quotation marks.

Any colours that will be included as part of the format need to be enclosed in square

brackets. [ ]

1) Select B9, the cell with the show’s duration.

2) Create the following custom format.

0 "Minutes"

The contents of the cell should now show a number (at least one digit) followed by the word

Minutes. E.g. 120 Minutes

3) Select B11, the ticket type amount cell.

4) Create the following custom currency format.

$0

5) Select cell B14, the ticket price cell and enter the following custom format.

$#,##0.00;[red]"Error";"0"

This format will result in positive numbers having a dollar sign with two decimal places. For

negative numbers, the text Error will appear in red (since the total shouldn’t result in a negative

number). If the value of the cell is zero a 0 will appear.

6) Change the number of tickets in B13 to test the format for the ticket total.



7) Save your workbook and try these custom formats on a blank worksheet and enter data in to

the cells to test the formats.

Format Suggested test data

"Remaining balance is" $#,##0.00 Any number

h:mm AM/PM "-" dd mmmm yyyy -now() function to calculate current date/time

$0.00;[red]$0.00;"Zero";[green]@ + and – numbers, 0, text

$* #,##0.00 " Debit";[Red]$* (#,##0.00)" Credit" + and – numbers

"You owe" 0 "dollars" Any number

Tip Custom number formats can also be used in some other applications. For instance, they are very useful for formatting data in Microsoft Access.

using microsoft excel - o'neil · using microsoft excel 2010 advanced skills ... this is the...

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